As Midnight Oil’s Peter Garrett so woefully demonstrated, it’s one thing to shout right-on slogans in catchy pop songs, quite another to deliver effective policy-making in the real world. The same could be said for Yothu Yindi’s 1991 hit, Treaty. Infectious dance-floor fodder, certainly. But as a recipe for real-world policy-making? Completely ludicrous.
The very idea of a nation-state signing a treaty with its own citizens is completely, utterly, legally bizarre. Treaties are by definition signed between a nation and foreign states.
So it comes down to the question of whether Aborigines are even really Australians or not. Anyone who supports a Treaty is tacitly stating that they are not.
When it comes to ludicrous policy-making, though, not even pop stars can match up to desperate wannabe, Anthony Albanese, and his government.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has described a radio interview with Anthony Albanese as a “train wreck”, accusing the Prime Minister of refusing to answer questions on Labor’s plan for a treaty.
“In a train wreck Radio National interview this morning, he was asked seven times whether he supported treaty and seven times refused to give a direct answer,” Mr Dutton said.
“When will we hear a straight word from this Prime Minister?”.
Well, we need only compare election-campaign-Albo with PM-Albo.
Through the election campaign, Albanese promised more than 90 times to cut Australians’ electricity bills in half. Instead, they’ve doubled.
On the other hand, Albanese never once mentioned an Indigenous Voice referendum — yet, the very day after the election, he declared it his number one priority. Not electricity bills, not mortgages, not cost of living.
He never once mentioned a “treaty”, either. Yet, here we are.
And his government still won’t come clean with Australian voters.
Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney says Australians will not hear new details of the Makarrata Project until after the referendum for an Indigenous voice to parliament has been held.
“The government of this country supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the Uluru Statement has three elements,” Mr Burney said during question time.
“The first request is for a voice to parliament which is what the referendum will be about this year. It then refers to a makarrata for truth telling and agreement making.”
The Australian
Burney is trying to pull a typically shoddy fast one, here. “Agreement making” is merely a euphemism for “Treaty” — which is what the Statement demands.
With the government dodging, weaving and lying through their teeth like this, no wonder Australians are deserting the referendum in droves.
With support for the voice trending down, Albanese does not want his constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament to become entwined in the public mind with a complex process of agreement making between governments and Indigenous Australians over the legacy of European settlement.
This became obvious this morning when Albanese was unable to answer a very simple question on ABC radio – did he support a treaty?
The Australian
If the PM won’t tell the truth, voters only need to look at what his own party is demanding behind closed doors.
The Australian can reveal Labor’s latest national platform draft, which will be taken to the party’s conference later this month, states: “Labor supports all elements of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, including a constitutionally enshrined voice to parliament, a Makarrata commission for agreement-making and a national process of truth-telling.”
The Australian
Which is pretty rich, considering they haven’t told Australians the truth once, yet.